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mum ABOUT THE WAR: 



OB, 



f la til Jfacls far ^Vlaiii f capk. 



iz:f^ 



BY 

EZRA M. HUNT. 



COPYRIGHTED. 



PRINTED BY F. S O M E ^I^S/JT tT C^.-U ''"^ 

No. 13 8PKUCE STREET. ^^ ^>. »r>frJ.!s.,M " '''*'- 



1861. X;-^o." >-^^:«- ^c>^' 



N?-.\^ 



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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in th3 year 1861, by Frederick Somors, 
In the Clerk's OlBoe of the District Court of Ahe United States, for the Southern Dis- 
trict of New York. 



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WORDS ABOUT THE WAR. 



With every American citizen, and we miglit almost say, with every 
citizen of a free government, our present war is the subject occupy- 
ing the largest share of worldly attention and remark. No ordinary 
times are these in which we live. Human society is disturbed to its 
foundations, and the greatest questions of national order and existence 
are in the process of agitation. No longer need we turn our eyes 
toward European struggles, and pass sentence upon the deeds of an- 
other continent. The crisis of the age is under consideration at home. 
It is not a time for day-dreaming, but life-acting ; not a period for 
doubtful disputations, but one when mind and men must with their 
reasons, opinions and acts throw the weight of their influence either 
upon the side of Liberty or Tyrany, of constitutional order and law, 
or of anarchy, confusion and misrule. It is vastly important that 
people of all classes and conditions should in this living present think 
and act aright, and not allow the interests of this or of coming gen- 
erations to suffer damage by their delay. Right views are the pa- 
rents of right action, and no earthly matter is at this time half so im- 
portant as that the citizens of the country should be satisfied as to 
the causes that have brought about this war, as to the justness of 
our determined defence, and the results which are to be sought. Those 
who, under the first impulses of patriotism, have already I'ecognized 
the great necessity of their decided co-operation and support of the 
Government in this war, need to know the facts bearing on the pres- 
ent struggle, that with calm and inflexible purpose they may be able 
to endure, if need be, prolonged effort, and occasional defeat. Those, 
on the other hand, who have little or no sympathy with the efforts put 
forth to suppress the rebellion, need kindly to be shown the justifying 
causes of our action, and to be induced to perceive that they occupy 
a position unjust to tliose who were the heroes of the revolution, un- 



4 WORDS ABOUT THE WAR. 

just to themselves, and untrue to the g-reat interests of American 
Liberty. Until I have exhausted all reasonable means to convince 
them I shall not denounce as traitors and tories those who are not 
lending the force of their influence to sustain us in this struggle. 

Some have not enjoyed the means of information and cannot be ex- 
pected to know the facts of the case, others have been misled by de- 
signing men, some are Nabals by nature, always in the negative on 
every other subject as well as this, some are self opinionated, and 
once getting an idea in their heads cling to it as their birth right, 
and have never been known to change on any subject whatever. The 
more closely facts and reason press upon them the more completely 
they close their minds to conviction, and even when silenced are true 
to the recipe of Hudibras, 

" A man convinced against his will 
Is of the same opinion still ." 

Supposed political rules still bind those who have not yet learned 
that party is far below patriotism, and because they did not vote for 
the present officers they seem to feel they must sympathize with the 
enemies of our Government, But leaving out these scattered excep- 
tions, it cannot be concealed that there are men among us, sensible 
and deservedly esteemed in other matters, who in one form or other 
fail to lend hearty co-operation in our present struggle. Some of them 
are professed Union men, but are crying "Peace, Peace, when there 
is no peace." They carp and criticize every act and measure of our 
chief officers for the suppression of the rebellion, and like Brecken- 
ridge councel a policy which, while pretending great respect for the 
Constitution, would, had it been pursued, left us ere this without one 
and the play and sport of faction and misrule. Others are timid, 
afraid that we shall not succeed, like those in Patrick Henry's time 
crying we are too weak, and magnifying every trouble and reverse. 
Others are in great fear as to its effect upon the times in the article 
of money, and are in real concern about the means of future support. 
Another class assume still more decided ground, and declare the war 
to be unjustifiable on our part, and to have arisen from a disposition 
to impose upon the South. These assert that she has not had her 
rights, and that she has due cause for this uprising and rebellion. 
We will suppose all these to be sincere, and, if so, open to kind con- 
viction, and as such we shall address ourselves to them. 

It is in no wise strange that such a party or parties should exist. 
War is in itself an evil, independent of necessity and of good results 
to be obtained thereby ; such an evil that the first impulse of men 
should be to avoid it. But when necessary, the law of self-preserva- 



. WORDS ABOUT THE WAR. 6 

tion, the welfare of our country, of ourtjclvcs, of posterity, make it a 
thrilling', moving duty. 

Even our own history has shown us the existence of such feelings, 
lu the times of the glorious Revolution of '76 hundreds and thousands 
of American citizens, many of them good and substantial men, Avcre 
opposed to the war. Sabine, the historian, says : " It is a very 
moderate computation to place the number of the Tories in the 
colonies who in arms aided the British troops, at 20,000. Thus a 
large share of the available fighting men in the colonies were arrayed 
against them. In the Carolinas and Pennsylvania the Whigs and 
Tories went through the war nearly equally divided. In Georgia 
the British held the State until 1782, and at the time of giving up, 
the royalist administration was complete throughout it. In New 
York the Loyalists were throughout the struggle the better party." 
One wlio will read the papers and coi'respondence of those times can 
not but see how many, who were no doubt sensible and good meaning 
men, disapproved of the Revolution, and yet many of them lived to bless 
its supporters ; and their children, in common with those of the 
patriots, have rejoiced with gratitude in the liberty thus secured. 
Is it not possible that you are making the same mistake ? When 
posterity comes to pass judgment upon your opinions may they not 
stand astonished that you should have been idle or felt lukewarm 
amid such a struggle. 

Come, let us reason together, and see the facts bearing upon the 
rebellion. None will deny but that for some cause, or under some pre- 
tense, certain of the States are resisting the authority of our Govern- 
ment. Under any and all circumstances resistance to a government 
must not only have reasons, but most weighty and unanswerable 
ones. " Prudence," says our Declaration of Independence, " will 
dictate tiiat governments long established should not be changed for 
light and transient causes." Governments arc not a mere idea. 
They are not the growth of a day or a 3'ear. Our Government was 
the result of four centuries })rcceding it. Like the Old English oak, 
if you cut it down it is many long years, if ever, before such another 
occupies its place. He who, without immense justification, lays 
hand upon a government commits a wholesale depredation upon the 
rights of man. It is " assault and battery " in its most diabolical 
proportion; "highway robbery, with intent to kill," in its most 
daring audacity. Religion, pliilosophy, and law, have ever alike 
pronounced it among the foremost sins in the catalogue of crime. 
Our forefathers were able to enumerate, and by specific facts to show, 
at least twenty-seven distinct and flagrant reasons for their secession. 



6 WORDS AlivlT THE WAR. 

It is even a question whether under a republican form of govern- 
ment the right of rebellion exists at all. So long as its elections are 
conducted by law, its modes of representation maintained, the ballot 
box open, the supreme court unstained by a corrupt judicary, the 
same cause for rebellion can not exist as may in a monarchy where 
authority is not put to vote, but is an inherited, life-long power. 
Majorities limited by frequent expirations of their terms of office, 
with their powers modified by the different branches of government, 
and all in accordance with the laws of the Supreme Court, these are 
the ultimate reliances of our Liberty. If these do wrong for a time, 
the spread of virtue and intelligence, the changes of time, and the 
voice of public opinion will coi'rect them. If these fail, our liberty 
fails, and the basis of our republican government is lost. 

In such a land as ours the argument against rebellion is still 
further magnified. Other lands have rebelled against tyranny, but 
he who rebels against the American Government, rebels against the 
world's national standard-bearer of the banner of Liberty. Other 
rebellions have been in behalf of freedom ; this is in behalf of slavery, 
A government founded by men who with every advancing year have 
become more and more the admiration of the civilized world, whose 
wisdom and counsel drew forth eloquent plaudits from the Chathams 
and Burkes of the British Parliament, which have been more fully 
endorsed by orators and statesmen of every country and age, a con- 
stitution which has already been the model of one hundred and twenty 
more, a system which in its practical working has been found so 
efficient as to raise an infant republic in the short space of seventy 
years to a point scarce second to any nation on the globe ; such laws, 
such institutions, must have for resistance thereto, not only reasons, 
but such reasons as will carry home overwhelming conviction to the 
minds and consciences of a watching world. Posterity will ask of 
History enormous endurance, immense oppression, as the justifying 
causes of such rebellion. 

It is not enough that little differences may have arisen, for happy 
families cannot always think just alike. It is not enough that inter- 
ests have seemed to clash, and one is favoured at the expense of the 
other, for it is the beauty of our system that diffusion of knowledge, 
change of office, free discussion, and popular vote, provide a remedy 
for such friction, where a remedy is really needed or deserved. The 
highest justifying causes for rebellion under every system of free 
government are where the ballot-box is untrue, the courts corrupt, 
the voice of the majority unheeded, direct taxation oppressive, 
and access to the public ear prevented. None of these are claimed 



WORDS ABOUT THE WAR. 7 

by any southern statesman, and all minor causes combined ar<; uoi 
suflScient to make out a case justifying- armed resistance. Bc■sid^'s, 
the history of our own Government has frequently shown how easily 
the voice of the people can be changed for due cause, how readily a 
wrong of one period, if it be a wrong, is corrected in another, and 
how time and experience give a changed view to human events. 

In the formation of the Constitution, New York was the most fear- 
ful about her State Rights, instead of South Carolina. In 1814, New 
England was complaining of sectionalism and oppression inBtead of the 
South, and at the Hartford Convention actually adopted a resolution, 
" That the admission of new States into the Union, formed at pleasui'C! 
in the western region, had destroyed the balance of power which ex- 
isted among the original States, and deeply affected their interests." 

The Protective Tariff was originally the policy of the South. Up- 
on it Louisiana was dependent for her sugar culture, and still earlier, 
the culture of cotton was commenced only under its fostering care. 
The North was opposed to the system ; and yet, in 1832, we find 
South Carolina endeavoring- to rebel on account of it. The North ac- 
cepts the system, and the South opposes it. Elections over and over 
again have shown precisely similar changes. States have been in 
turn the strongest on the side of one political party, and then of an- 
other ; and a single State, in the last election, changed its vote from 
that four years before, by one hundred and forty thousand. Surely, 
in view of such facts, rebellion, against any supposed grievance, is 
the most unjustifiable resort of the American people. 

Resistence to such a government is so undeniably at war with all 
the principles of human and divine law, and has so little to excuse a 
crime, which has ever been classed among the most guilty and inex- 
cusable in the conception of men, that even the very leaders of the 
movement seemed to have dreaded to face its enormity as treason. 

In the history of government a new thing under the sun is claim- 
ed, and we have the so called " Right of Secession.^' This means that 
our Government was so constituted that any State, whenever it may 
see proper, without the consent of the others or of the General Gov- 
ernment, has a right to withdraw, and to be a separate country. 

Let us see if it can not be proven, both from history and common 
sense, that such is not the case. 

1. The first Union of these States was under the so-called " Arti- 
cles of Confederation." The first sentence calls them " articles of con- 
federation and perpetual union." Their title is in the same lan- 
guage. The words, peipetual union, are used five times in the docu- 
ment ; and surely peipetual did not in those days mean that a State 



8 WORDS ABOUT THE WAR. 

eould leave whenever it sees proper. The concluding part of its hist 
Article is this : 

" Know ye that we, the undersigned delegates, by virtue of the power and au- 
thority to us given for that purpose, do, by these presents, in the name and in be- 
half of our respective constituents, fully and entirely ratify and confirm each and 
every of the said Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, and all and singu- 
lar the matters therein contained ; and we do further solemnly plight and engage 
the faith of our respective constituents, that they shall abide by the determination 
of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which by the said Con- 
federation are submitted to them ; and that the articles thereof shall be inviolably 
observed by the States we represent ; and that the Union be perpetual.'. 

The preamble to our Constitution begins thus : "We the people of 
the United States, in order to form a a more perfect union." 

The following points are undisputed matters of liistory. Wash- 
ington was among the first to feel the necessity of a Constitution, and 
he took the first steps toward ui'ging the matter upon the attention 
of the proper authorities. In a circular letter to the governors of the 
States, dated June 8, 1183, he names as "essential to the existence 
of the United States as an independent power, First, an mdis^oluble 
union of the States under one federal head." Surely, " never to be 
dissolved," does not mean, to be dissolved at pleasure. 

The Resolution, appointing the Convention to make our Constitu- 
tion, in its preamble declares the design to be, " a firm national gov- 
ernment. It met in 178*1. Washington, President. Governor Ran- 
dolph, of Virginia, introduced the first series of resolutions by which, 
as he said, he meant "a firm and consolidated Union." Mi*. C. Pinck- 
ney, of South Carolina, introduced a plan, as he said, "on the same 
principles as of the above resolutions." Mr. Patterson, of New Jer- 
sey, presented a plan, " on the basis of the sovereignty of the respec- 
tive States." Randolph's plan was adhered to. Virginia, the Caro- 
linas and Georgia, with other States, voted in favor of it. The let- 
ter addressed, by unanimous order of the Convention, to the President 
of Congress, has this language : " In all our deliberations on the sub- 
ject, we have kept steadily in view the consolidation of our union.'' 

In answer to Hamilton's suggestion of its adoption by New York, 
"with the reservation of the right to recede," Madison, a prominent 
member of the Convention, and afterward a President, declares that 
" the Constitution requires an adoption in toto and forever. It has 
been so adopted by the other States." 

In the Legislature of South Carolina, in 1188, Charles C. Pinckney 
her leading statesman said, "Let us consider all attempts to weaken 
this Union, by maintaining that each State is separately and individ- 
ually independent, as a species of political heresy which can nevei 



WORDS ABOUT THE WAR. 9 

benefit us, hut uiny bring on us thi? most serious distresses." In 
1789, South Carolina voted for "the firm consoUdated Union." 
These are but a few of many like evidences to show that not only 
was our Government meant to be a perpetual Union, but that this 
light of secession was at that very time discussed and decided against, 
and that decision is our Constitution. It was meant to make of the 
United States a nation. Hence Ave have ever talked of our national 
welfare, interests, and institutions. It was reserved for the disciples 
of Calhoun to start the doctrine that this is a grand mistake, and to 
say, as did General Quitman, who until his death Avas the next repre- 
sentative of this doctrine, " that the United States is not, nor never 
has been, in any true sense a nation." 

Now look at a few of the absurdities of the so-called right of 
secession. 

If one State has a right to secede, so have all ; and then where is 
the Government, and who pays the debts ? 

If secession is a riglit, New Jersey, or any central State, may se- 
cede, and invite some European power to her borders ; and then Avho 
shall protect the other States ? 

If the Constitution gives the right of secession, then it is the spec- 
tacle of a government making provision for its own destruction. 
Was this the wisdom of our fathers ? 

Would we have ever paid what, at our present population, is equiva- 
lent to 400,000,000 of dollars for Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and the 
country west and northwest thereof, if we believed they had the right 
to leave whenever they chose 'i 

Such, briefly yet sufliciently, is the truth of history and of common 
sense as to this so-called right of secession ; and yet Davis and his 
confederates profess not to be rebelling, but seceding. Neither his- 
tory nor reason can find the distinction. It is treason in lamb's-wool. 
It is what the leaders themselves have not claimed the right of, and 
that is rebellion. 

We have then before us the f ict, that a portion of the country is 
disobeying the Government, setting at naught its authority, and disre- 
garding its laws. In seeking out the enormous reasons which should 
in anv way justify such a proceeding, it is right and fair first to turn 
to the leaders of the outbreak, and hear what they have to say in 
justification. 

In the list of grievances mention is made of the Tariff. It was in 
reference to this that South Carolina, in 1832, espoused the doctrine 
of Nullification, and assumed a right to set at naught the revenue 
laws of the United States, The larger portion of the South was suf- 



10 WOEDS ABOUT THE WAE. 

fering, as they supposed, from the unjust oppression of this tariff; 
but liere again we learn how Uttle excuse these sectional views are 
for disturbing the peace of the Union. A single passage from the 
speech of A. H. Stephens, of Georgia, now Vice-President of the so 
called Southern Confederation, disposes of the whole matter : 

In 1832, when I was in college, South Carolina was ready to nullify or secede 
from the Union on this account. And what have we seen? The tariff no longer 
distracts the public councils. Eeason has triumphed. The present tariff was voted 
for by Massachusetts and South Carolina. The lion and the lamb lay down to- 
gether ; every man in the Senate and House from Massachusetts and South Caro- 
lina, I think, voted for it, as did my honorable friend himself. And if it be true, 
to use the figure of speech of my honorable friend, that every man in the North 
that works in iron, and brass, and wood has his muscle strengthened by the protec- 
tion of the Government, that stimulant was given by his vote, and I believe every 
other Southern man. So we ought not to complain of that. [Mr. Toombs — That 
tariff lessened the duties.] Yes ; and Massachusetts with unanimity voted with 
the South to lessen them, and they were made just as low as Southern men asked 
them to be, and that is the rates they are now at. If reason and argument, with 
experience, produced such changes in the sentiments of Massachusetts from 1832 to 
1857 on the subject of the tariff, may not like changes be effected there by the same 
means — reason and argument, and appeals to patriotism — on the present vexed 
question ? And who can say that by 1875 or 1890 Massachusetts may not vote with 
South Carolina and Georgia upon all those questions which now distract the country 
and threaten its peace and existence ? I believe in the power and efficiency of 
truth, in the omnipotence of truth, and its ultimate triumph when properly 
wielded. 

Something has been said by way of complaint by one or more 
Southern statesmen about the fishing bounty and the navigation laws. 
If there is reason for complaint at all, the West has far more occasion 
as to these than the South ; but Stephens and Everett, between them, 
have set these matters at rest. Stephens shows that they were com- 
menced under a Southern President, and not a single administration 
has ever set " its principles or policy against them." Everett shows 
that it amounted to but $200,005 as an annual average, and in the 
single matter of removing the Indians from Georgia more money was 
expended than for fishing bounties in seventy years. As to the navi- 
gation laws, the prince of Southern statesmen says that " they were 
commenced under one of the Southern Presidents, and had been con- 
tinued through all of them since," and that the effort of his friend 
Mr. Toombs to get them repealed "had met with but little favor 
North or Soicth.'" 

Texas, in her ordinance, gives one original cause of secession, and 
that is, she has not been "properly protected on her exposed frontier," 
when she has cost us more than a hundred million of dollars, and the 
chief expense of our military department has been of the Southwestern 



WORDS ABOUT THE WAR. H 

frontier. As a comment upon this reason, you need but to have seen 
the care-worn troops who were so meanly betrayed after her revolt. 
But all these are mere incidental points. Throughout the South, and 
chiefly throughout the North, the subject of Slavery is in some foiiii 
or other the alleged reason for this rebellion. Gathering up all the 
general or specific charges which are to be found in Southern i;on- 
ventions, journals, Congressional reports, and excited speeches, from 
the time of the first agitation imtil last November, they are all in- 
cluded under these four reasons : 

I. The election of a Republican President. 

II. The agitation of the Slavery question. 

III. The limitation of Slavery extension. 

IV. Disregard of the Fugitive Slave Law. 

I. Is the election of Mr. Lincoln sufficient cause for rebellion against 
the authority of this Government ? It is admitted that his election 
was constitutional; that it- was by a fairly expressed vote, in a con- 
test into which North and South, East and West entered ; by what 
the Constitution regards as a majority, in a word ; that in mode and 
form of nomination and election there was nothing contrary to our 
laws. The objection is not to the mode. 

Is it to the man ? He was by all the forms of the Constitution in 
every way eligible to the office. He was not one who had rendered 
himself especially obnoxious to the Southern States. A Kentuckian 
by birth, and a Western man by settlement, he had never identified 
himself with those sections of which the South has mostly complamed. 
No inflammatory speeches or sarcastic denunciations had ever escaped 
from his lips. During the canvass he did not express himself in any 
way hostile to Southern interests. Yet he was not a man whose 
views were unknown. They had been most severely tested by Mr. 
Douglas bujt two years before, without reference to this election, and 
had undergone no change whatever. These two questions- had then 
been distinctly asked him, and in writing he had answered them : 

Q. I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day stands, as he did iu 1854, in favor of 
the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law ? 

^. I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the unconditional repeal of the 
Fugitive Slave Law. 

Q. I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the abolition of Slavery 
in the District of Columbia? 

^. I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of Slavery in the District oi 
Columbia. 

He had added to these the following remarks : 

As to the first one, in regard to the Fugitive Slave Law, I have never hesitated 
to say, and I do not now hesitate to say. that I think, under the Constitution of the 



12 WORDS ABOUT THE WAK. 

United States, the people of the Southern States are entitled to a Congressional 
Fugitive Slave Law. Having said that. I have had nothing to say in regard to the 
(<xi~ting Fugitive Slave Law, further than that I think it should have been framed 
s to be free from some of the objections that pertain to it, without lessening its 
■ ucii And inasmuch as we are not now in an agitation in regard to an altera- 
u .11 .1 modification of that law, I would not be the man to introduce it as a new 
subject ot agitation upon the general question of Slavery. 

The second one is in regard to the abolition of Slavery in tire District of Colum- 
bia. In relation to that, I have my mind very distinctly made up. I should be 
exceedingly glad to see Slavery abolished in the District of Columbia. I believe 
that Congress possesses the constitutional power to abolish it. Yet, as a memljer 
of Congress, I should not, with my present views, be in favor of endeavoring to abol- 
ish Slavery in the District of Columbia, unless it would be upon these conditions : 
First, that the abolition should be gradual ; second, that it should be on a vote of 
the majority of qualified voters in the District ; and third, that compensation should 
be made to unwilling owners. 

He was nominated as a conservative man, whose character and 
conduct had been that of thoughtful honesty rather than that of 
impetuous ambition. He had expressed the opinion that slavery- 
ought not to be allowed in the Territories of the United States, but 
had in no way argued anything but an entire sUence on the part of 
the Government in respect to it as in the States. 

Was it the party who elected him ? They had a right to express 
their opinions by their votes, or eyen their choice, where they had 
but few opinions. Thousands who voted for him differed on some 
points from the Republican party. It of itself was but a recent 
party, and our history had often before shown that the result of one 
election was no criterion for the next. The same papers which an- 
nounced their success also declared " an anti-Republican majority in 
both Houses of Congress." The platform of the party had this reso- 
lution thus plainly expressed : 

That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the 
right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to 
its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of powers on which the 
perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends ; and we denounce the 
lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter 
under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes. 

There was an actual gain of anti-Republicans in Congress, showing 
that other causes had operated besides this one question in his elec- 
tion. Besides, as we shall see more fully hereafter, the result had 
actually been brought about by the conduct of the Southern States 
themselves. The language of Mr. Stephens on these points is not 
only of force, because from him, but because it is the language of 
common sense and fact. In his Georgia address, November 14th, 
1860, he says: 



WOKDS ADOUT THE WAR. 13 

Are we entirely lilameless in this matter, my count ry men .' I irive it tn yon ,is 
my opinion that but for tlie policy the fjoutlicni people pursued, this feartul rei^ult 
would not have occurred. 

Had the South stood firmly in the C^onveutiun at Charleston, on her old platform 
of principles of non interventiiiu, there is in my mind but little doubi that who- 
ever might have been the candidate of the National Democratic party would have 
been elected by as large a majority as that which elected Mr. Buchanan or .Mr. 
Pierce. Therefore, let us not be hasty and rash in our action, especially it the 
result be attributable at all to ourselves. 

In my judgment the election of no man, constitutionally chosen to that ni^^h 
office, is sufficient cause for any State to separate from the Union. It v>imlit to 
stand by and aid still in maintaining the Constitution of the country. To niiiKe a 
p'>int of resist.ance to the Government, to withdraw from it because a man has l>et;n 
constitutionally elected, puts us in the wrong. We are jJedged to maintain the 
Constitution. Many of us have sworn to support it. Can we, therefore, for the 
mere election of a man to the Piesidency, and that, too, in accordanc<! with the 
prescribed forms of the Cimstitution, make a point of resistance to the Government 
without becoming the breakers of that sacred instrument ourselves ? Withdraw 
ourselves from it ? Would we not be in the wrong ? Whatever fate is to befall 
this countrj', let it never be laid to the charge of the people of the South, and 
especially to the people of Georgia, that tee were untrue to our national engagements. 
Let the fiiult and the wrong rest upon others. If all our hopes are to be blasted, 
if the Republic is to go down, let us be found to the last mcmient standing on the 
deck, with the flag of the Constitution of the United States waving over our heads. 
Let the fanatics of the North l)reak the Constitution, if such is their fell purpose. 
Let the responsibility be upon them. I shall speak more presently of their acts. 
But let not the South, let us not be the ones to commit the aggression. We went 
into the election with this pet)ple. The result was dififerent from what we wished ; 
but the election has been constitutionally held. Were we to make a point of 
resistance to the Government, and go out of the Union on that account, the record 
would be made up hereafter against us. 

I do not anticipate that Mr. Lincoln will do anything to jeopard our safety or 
security, whatever may be his spirit to do it ; for he is bound by the constitutional 
checks which are thrown around him, which at this time render him powerless to 
do any great mischief. This shows the wisdom of our .system. The President of 
the United States is no emperor, no dictator he is clothed with no absolute power. 
He can do nothing unless he is backed by power in Congress. The House of Rep- 
resentatives is largely in the majority against him. In the very face and teeth of 
the heavy majority which he has obtained in the Northern States, there have been 
large gains in the House of Representatives to the Conservative Constitutional 
party of the country, which here I will call the National Democratic party, because 
that is the cognomen it lias at the North. There are twelve of this party elected 
from New York to the next Congress, I believe. In the present House there are 
but four, I think. In Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, and Indiana there have 
been gains. In the present Congress there were 113 Republicans, when it takes 
117 to make a majority. The gaius of the Democratic party in Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
New Jei-sey, New York, Indiana, and other States, notwithstanding its distractions, 
have been enough to make a majority of nearly thirty in the ne.xt House against 
Mr. Lincoln. Even in Boston, Mr. Burlingame, one of the noted leaders of the 
fanatics of that section, has been defeated, and a conservative man returned in his 



1*4 WORDS ABOUT THE WAR. 

stead. Is this the time, then, to apprehend that Mr. Lincoln, with this large 
majority in the House of Representatives against him, can carry out any of his^ 
constitutional principles in that body ? In the Senate he will also be powerless. 
There will be a majority of four against him. This after the loss of Bigler. Fitch, 
and others, by the unfortunate dissensions of the National Demon-atic party ir» 
their States. Mr. Lincoln can not appoint an officer without the consent of tlu' 
Senate — he can not form a cabinet without the same consent. He will be in the 
condition of George the Third (the embodiment of Tor3'ism), who had to ask the 
Whigs to appoint his ministers, and was compelled to receive a cabinet utterly 
opposed to his views. And so Mr. Lincoln will be compelled to ask of the Senate 
to choose for him a cabinet, if the democracy of that body choose to put him on 
such terms. He will be compelled to do this or let the Government stop, if the 
National Democratic men (for that is their name at the North), the conservative 
men in the Senate, should so determine. Then how can Mr. Lincoln obtain a 
cabinet which would aid him, or allow him to violate the Constitution ? Why, 
then, I say, should we disrupt the ties of this Union, when his hands are tied, 
when he can do nothing against us ? 

It is said he was elected by a section or by a sectional party. This 
is not strictly true. The South has no right to call itself one section, 
and all the other States another. We have the Eastern, Middle, and 
Western States, as recognized sections, often with interests quite 
diverse. Buchanan did not obtain a single electoral vote in New 
England, yet the cry of sectionalism was not raised. The States 
North had each large parties opposed to Lincoln, and divided 
between Douglas, Breckenridge, and Bell. New Jersey at least did 
not deserve to be called sectional. The States South did not all vote 
in the same way, but differed among themselves. In fact, the ques- 
tion of sections has nothing to do with such an election. Our 
fathers wisely left this matter to regulate itself. It always has in the 
past, and will in the future. New England has ceased complaining 
of the sectionalism of the West, and the West ceased so shrilly to 
cry for internal improvement. It seems to me that all of us, with 
Stephens and Douglas, Breckenridge and Everett, Holt, Dickerson, 
and Dix, and with the Republicans themselves, must agree that the 
mere election of Lincoln did not justify rebellion — is not the shadow 
of an excuse for defiance to such a government as ours. 

n. The agitation of the Slavery question is assigned as another 
cause for rebeUion. 1. To be of any force as a reason for breaking up 
the Government, the South must needs prove that the entire respon- 
sibiUty of this rests with the other sections. But what are the facts ? 
Our Government started with slavery excluded by common consent 
north of the Une of the Ohio River, and it was not until it was at- 
tempted to introduce slavery into Missouri, that the agitation com- 
menced. In position, in character, in cultivation, it resembled the 



"WORDS AUOIJT THE WAK. 15 

States formed from the NortliAvest Territory. The plea of extreme 
heat, or of the necessities of the cotton crop, did not here apply. 
From all the territory we had acquired by purchase, one Southern 
State, Louisiana, had already been admitted as slave, and freedom 
was at least entitled to a share. If you will review the discussions 
on this subject for the last forty years, it is plain to perceive that the 
Hotspurs of the South were not excelled by the most ultra of the 
North. Interference Avith freedom commenced on the one part before 
interference with slavery on the other. They who make unreasonable 
demands, not those that resist them, first deserve the name of agi- 
tators. 

2. It must be shown that this agitation has injured the South. But 
what are the asserted facts ? Senator Hammond, or Gov. Hammond, 
of South Carolina, October 26, 1858, in discussing the advantage this 
agitation had been to the South, speaks of the " happy results of the 
abolition discussion. So far," says he, " our gains have been im; 
mense from this contest, savage and malignant as it has been." Then 
as to the value of negroes, we know this has nearly doubled within a 
few years. Here again is his testimony : " In this very quarter of a 
century our slaves have doubled in numbers, and each slave has more 
than doubled in value." " My deliberate judgment," says Stephens, 
in January, 1857, is, that "by these agitations, slavery has been greatly 
strengthened and fortified — strengthened and fortified not only in the 
opinions, convictions, and consciences of men, hut by the action of the 
Government." One who has visited the South can not but receive 
the same impression. So far as the agitation has been in reference 
to the extension of slavery, the fact is that the South has not and can 
not have slaves to extend it with, imless the African slave-trade is 
resumed. The increase, rapid as it is, is not rapid enough to supply 
the home demand. Again ; this slave agitation has been chiefly fos- 
tered by acqiiisition of new territory, and this has been eminently 
Southern policy. Our Government has paid millions for States now 
slave, where it has but thousands for those free. 

3. This agitation was not even on the increase. The fact is, thai 
90 far as the main question is concerned, that of slavery in the States, 
the country has for years been tending to a more settled and satis- 
factory policy. In 1836, petitions were signed by thousands and tens 
of thousands for the prohibition of slavery in the District of Colum- 
bia, and in all the forts, dock-yards, etc., of Government, while multi- 
tudes advocated general emancipation ; but now such views are not 
pressed in our Government. The Abolitionists themselves have felt 
inereasiner weakness as to numbers — have denounced as traitors states- 



16 WORDS ABOUT THE WAB. 

men whom they once thought sympathized with them, and admit 
themselves to be a very small party. The testimony of Democratic 
and even of Southern governors of Kansas, and that of the investi 
gating committee, have proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that 
here the great error was on the side of slavery, and that such wrongs 
as were then attempted ought to be agitated. 

4. But the chief point is this. Mere agitation is a miserable ex- 
cuse for breaking up so glorious a government as ours. If wrong, it 
is not wrong enough for that. It has brought forth no destruction 
to any paz*t of our land, and with the records of our own history the 
South should be the last to complain. She asked for slavery in Louis- 
iana, and she got it ; in Florida, and it is granted ; for the annexa- 
tion of Texas, with the privilege of four more States to be carved 
therefrom, and she obtained it; for New Mexico, and she had it ; for 
Missouri, and she had it ; for a Fugitive Slave Law, the most strin- 
gent of any property law on our record, and she obtained it; for 
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and she got it; for the 
doctrine that the Constitution carries slavery into the Territo- 
ries, and the courts attempted so to decide it. But once in the 
history of our Government has it without compromise decided oppo- 
site to Southern view, and that was the admission of Kansas. Surely 
such facts might excuse the North for complaint, but never the South 
for rebellion. 

III. Another reason assigned for rebellion is the limitation of 
slavery extension. This, in fact, is the only significance of tht 
election of Lincoln. But his choice does not even settle this. Wher 
we remember that he was chosen over three opposing candidates, tht 
opposition thus being scattered and disorganized, that thousands 
voted for him who do not fully subscribe even the platform of the 
party ; that it was with multitudes rather the expression of their dis- 
pleasure at the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, than a desire foi 
universal restriction ; and that the election of congressmen, which it 
full as much an expression of sentiment, was just in the other di 
rection, we see the folly of such an excuse. It did not even settle 
this matter against Southern sentiment. It was but a four years' 
choice, and not sustained by congressional aid. No case was at 
hand, or likely to be, upon which to act. If Southern rights were 
jeoparded at all, it was in mere theory, not in fact. In a popular 
government all can not be expected to think alike, and for a minority 
to rebel, is treason in the start. A part of Pennsylvania once felt just 
as sorely under Washington, all New England under Madison in 
1814, and South Carolina vmder Jackson in 1832, and yet on these 



WOKDS M'.OVV THi VVAU. 17 

points each has been reheved. These almost propnetic words of 
Henry Clay, in 1850, are still the true language of common sense. 

Mr. President : I am ready to say, that if Congress were to attach within the 
States the institution of Shivery for the purpose of its ovcrtlirow or extinction, my 
voice would be for war. But if the two portions of this Confederacy should unhap- 
pily be involved in civil war, in which the effort on the one side would be to restrain 
the introduction of slavery into new Territories, and on the other side to force its 
introduction there, what a spectacle would we present to the contemplation of as- 
tonished mankind ! An effort not to propagate right, but I must say an effort to 
propagate wrong. It would be a war in which we would have no sympathy, no 
good wishes, and in which all mankind would be against us, and in which our own 
history itself would be against us. The Government has no right to touch the in- 
stitution within the States ; but whether she has, and to what extent she has the 
right or not to touch it outside the States, is a question which is di;batable, but 
which, decided however it may be decided, furnishes, in my judgment, no just occa- 
sion for breaking up this happy and glorious Union of ours. 

IV. A fourth, and the only remaining reason assigned, is a disre- 
gard of the Fugitive Slave Law.' 

The Constitution does provide that a "person at service or labor in 
one State fleeing into another, shall be delivered up on claim of the 
owner." Now to the facts of the case. There is no law on any 
statute-book of the land for the fulfilment of which such provisions 
have been made. Most stringent, and in some cases severe measures 
have been adopted by the General Government to secure its execu- 
tion. States took the matter into their own hands, until a decision 
of the Supreme Court which has never been suspected of conniving 
at any neglect of Southern rights, decided that it was the business of 
the Federal Government, by its officers in the several States, to set- 
to its execution. Facts and history testify how diligently they have 
attended to their work. The law has been faithfi;lly executed. In 
vain have such men as Douglas and others called upon the South to cite 
an exception. It is true that in some cases there has been difficulty, 
hut it has not been between the South and the Federal Government, 
but between the Government and individuals of the North, and in be- 
half of the South, and the Government has always triumphed. In the 
case of the slave Jerry, at Syracuse, in the midst of excitement, and 
in a region most hostile to the institution of slavery, still the right of 
the Government to rescue, triumphed. Authorities do not furnish a 
single exception. Our treasury has borne the cost of the enforce- 
ment of the law. The rights of trial by jury have been waived, 
slaves returned on what in common law Avould have been doubtful 
evidence, and " free men been sent to the South as slaves who have 
been returned on our hands," There are good laws against murder, 
yet too often the murderer escapes ; there are laws against burglary 



i8 



WOKDS ABOUT *£HB WAB. 



and theft, and yet these occur ; but so long as law makes an effort for 
justice, we do not complain of its occasional failure, much less rebel 
against all law. It is a fact, as plain as recorded facts can make it, 
that no class of people in the land have — where they have made 
effort and proved ownership — succeeded so well in reclaiming stolen 
or strayed property, as have the South. 

Another point : The evil to require rebellion should be on the 
increase. Here are the statistics of the census of 1860 and of 1850, 
showing a decided decrease in this suppose cause of offense. 

FUGITIVE SLAVES AS EETUENED BY THE SEVENTH CENSUS (1850) AND THE 
EIGHTH CENSUS (1860) EESPEOTIVELT. 



States. 



-Census op 1850.- 



Slaves. Fugitives. One in 



Alabama 342,814 . . , 

Arkansas 47,100 . . 

Delaware 2,200 .. 

Florida 39,310 .. 

Greorgia 381,682 .. 

Kentucky 210,981 .. 

Louisiana 244,809 . . 

Maryland 90,368 . . 

Mississippi 309,878 . . 

Missouri 87,422 . . 

North Carolina. . . . 288,548 . . 

South Carolina 384,984 . . 

Tennessee 239,459 . . 

Texas 58,161 .. 

Virginia 472.528 .. 



29 
21 
26 
18 
89 
96 
90 
279 
41 
61 
61 
16 
70 
29 
83 



11,822 
2,224 
88 
2,184 
4,288 
2,698 
2,726 
314 
7,5.'-)8 
1,457 
4,508 

24,061 
3,421 
2,005 
5,693 



Census op 1860. 

Slaves. Fugitives. 

36 



.. 485,132 
.. 111,104 
.. 1,798 
.. 61,753 
. . 463,230 
. . 225 490 
. . 332,520 
. 87,182 
. . 436,696 
.. 114,965 
.. 311,108 
. . 402,541 
, . . 276,784 
, . . 180,388 
. . 490,887 



. 28 
. 12 
. 11 
. 23 
.119 
. 46 
.115 
. 68 
. 99 
. 61 
. 23 
. 29 
. 16 
.142 



One in 

12,087 

3,868 

160 

5,614 

20,096 
1,895 
7,228 
758 
6,422 
1,161 
5,268 

17,501 
9,543 

11,274 
4,195 



Totals . . . .3,200,364 . . .1,011 .... 3,165 . . .3,919,557 . . . .803 .... 4,911 
Even of these, numbers escape to the Everglades of Florida, or to 
the wild wildernesses of some dismal swamp. 

Another point : The complaint is chiefly from States that seldom 
or ever have a fugitive escape to the North. South Carolina is 
loudest in the cry, and gives this, in her secession ordinance, as the 
reason for her rebellion ; yet it is not probable that five Carolina 
negroes can be found in all the Northern States, and Canada besides. 
.Vs was said by Douglas in one of his last speeches in the Senate, 
'' Kentucky and Illinois can see no cause for separation on this 
account." It is South Carolina and Vermont that have the greatest 
gratuitous excitement about the whole affair. Never was a govern- 
ment more faithful to its obligations than has been ours in this 
respect. It has seemed to be the hobby of our Supreme Court to give 
the most strict construction to the law, and the highest ambition of 
our federal officers to enforce it. The Virginia slave escaping to 
Maryland was returned by the same process as the one escaping to 
Pennsylvania. In neither case were State officers called upon to 
carry out the provisions of the law. Any refusal on the part of 



WORDS AKOirr I'HE WAR. 19 

States to co-operate, if untVieiully, was not uiicoiistitiitional, :\i\A in 
no case successful. 

But it is affirmed, and that truly, that some States have enacted 
laws at variance with the requisitions of the Fugitive Slave Law. 
But have these, in any single case, prevented the carrying out of the 
provisions of the United States law. ISTot one. If these laws are at 
variance, is not the proper course to draw the attention of the General 
Government to their correction ? Yet this has never been done in 
the form either of resolution in Congress or of appeal to the Suj^reme 
Court. But even the facts as to the existence of such laws have been 
misrepresented. Not a single border State (and these are the ones 
to which fugitive slaves mostly escape) has a law at variance with 
the United States law on this point. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Min- 
nesota, California, and Oregon have, we believe, no laws in ft)rce on 
the subject. New .Jersey has had no trouble about the matter, so 
far as we know, within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. Penn- 
sylvania has not legislated directly upon the law of 1850, has not 
closed her jails against fugitives, and has no provision in conflict with 
the United States law. The very last case under it was a triumphant 
vindication of the law. " The State of New York has passed no 
laws having relation to the United States Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, 
Though pressed frequently upon the Legislature, they have always 
failed of adoption." Rhode Island had a law not constitutional, but 
at the suggestion of her noble governor it was repealed when first 
complaint was made thereof In fact, the ablest article prepared 
upon these laws shows that only Vermont, Michigan, and Wisconsin 
have laws on this point unconstitutional, and they are, as such, nuU 
and void. Wherever, in tested cases, slaveholders have failed in 
recovering their property, it has been in cases where they have not 
established an ownership, or have in some way been defeated in due 
process of a friendly law. Their success has been more uniform than 
that which has attached to lawsuits generally. 

Besides, are there no laws or acts on the part of the South that are 
equally as unconstitutional. The same article and section of the 
Constitution which requires the retui-n of fugitives says : " The citizens 
of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of 
citizens in the several States." Has the Supreme Court labored to 
enforce this as it has the Fugitive Slave Law ? Are there any com- 
missioners in the several States to fulfil its provisions ? Has Judge 
Lynch, who for so many years has dispensed law liberally at the 
South, ever been tried for unconstitutionality ? From the case of 
.Judge Hoar to the present time, have there not been numberless 



2(X WOKDS ABOt'J' I'ttK WAE, 

instances of restriction on civil privileges V Senator Johnson tells as? 
that the terms of citizenship are such, in South CaroUna, as to property^ 
that there he never could have had a vote, much less been a Senator. 

" No two months," says R F. Butler, " have passexl, in the last ten years at least, 
in which outrages have not been committed upon Northern men in the South, 
which, had they been perpetrated by a foreign nation, would have demanded a 
redress of grievances under pain of a suspension of diplomatic relations. But we 
have borne these outrages because there was no tribunal to the arbitrament of 
which we could submit them, and it was against the genius of our people to appeal 
to arms." 

We complain, not that the abolitionist should be hardly dealt Avitlr 
at the South, but cases are known to myself, and numberless ones 
have been well authenticated, where, even in previous yearsy unof- 
fending and prudent men have been assailed and maltreated, and 
great encroachments made upon human liberty. Had an American' 
citizen abroad been treated as many a one has at the South on mali- 
cious suspicion, the whole force of our Government would have been 
threatened for his protection. 

Perfect justice can not always be attained in small communities,, 
and less in a wide-spread nation, but a government which has so in- 
dustriously tried and so eiticiently succeeded in sustaining a law 
which must be expected not to excite the admiration of aD, deserves 
anything but rebellion and attempted destruction at the hands of 
those whom it has so diligently protected. 

From the summary of the pretended, we now turn to the reaf 
causes of this rebellion. They are three : 

I. An over-indulgence of the South hj the North. 

II. A change of view on the part of leading Southern men on the 
subject of slavery. 

III. The wrong feeling and wrong action which the continuous 
existence of slavery in a republic is sure to beget. 

Let us follow up the history of the Government from the formation 
of the Constitution until the present time, and see how plainly pure 
facts prove these positions. 

I, As to over-indulgence. 1. The mode of representation adopted' 
in the very start, although not so intended, has had this effect. If 
the prominent doctrine now advocated by the South is true, that 
the slave is to be dealt with as property, then why should the man- 
worth five thousand dollars by virtue of holding five slaves have, in 
representation in Congress, three votes therefore besides his OAvn,. 
while I, worth just as much in other stock, have nothing but my owe 
single count ? Look at the great advantage and indulgence thus 
secured. 



W0KD8 ABOUT THE WAR. 21 

It takes 91,935 white men and women ]^orth to secure one repre- 
sentative in Congress, but only 68,726 South. Nearly half of the 
delegation from South Carolina occupy their seats by virtue of their 
negro population. This representation of what they call property, 
and of what are not certainly citizens, has furnished the South n 
majority sufficient to carry its measures. We have not had the 
chance to impose if we would. The representation by States, instead 
of by population, gives 13,238,670 people North, only as many 
Senators as 6,186,477 had from the South. Thus, in both halls of 
Congress, 6,186,477 white people South have 120 representatives, 
while 13,238,670 North have but 176. The ratio by numbers would 
be 246, i. e., about 20 more than we have. These are according to 
the last census, and our recent one shows a still greater increase. I 
need not follow out the vast advantage the South has possessed by 
this arrangement. 

2. This indulgence is manifest in the whole history of our 
legislation and politics. The Government began with slavery, by 
direct law, excluded from all the territory it owned. Under the 
next head we shall easily show that no such idea as the further 
extension of slavery ever entered the minds of those who formed our 
Constitution and procured our liberties. Yet the chief policy of our 
Government has ever been controlled by the South and by slave- 
interests. When a Tariff, and a United States Bank, and the poUcy 
of Internal Improvements were advocated there, they succeeded, and 
when not, they failed. When Louisiana Territory was wanted at 
#15,000,000, though the country was still poor in means, it was pur- 
chased. Florida was obtained at five milUons of dollars, and eighty 
millions more spent in wars to rid it from its aboriginal inhabitants. 
Southern immigrants secured the independence of Texas, and as a 
Southern policy it was annexed to us, and the result was an expend- 
iture of 8210,000,000. All this out of the mutual treasury, and paid 
for Southern policy, with not a dollar to balance it for the North. 
The after-expenses of protecting the frontier more than balanced any 
local benefit of ours. Our wars with the English, the Indians, and 
the Mexicans were all at the bidding of Southern statesmen. New 
England uttered her protest, but sent her sailors to secure the victory ; 
and away off in unfriendly Mexico, notwithstanding distance and 
climate, we furnished one third of the soldiers, and more than half of 
the two most trying things for war, the money and the deaths. 

'' Five hundred million dollars of the public funds,'' says Everett, *' of 
which, at least, five sixths have been levied by indirect taxation from 
the North and Northwest, have been expended for the Gulf States in 



32 WORDS ABOUT THE WAR. 

this century." The policy of the South has been, almost invai'iably, 
the policy of the country. How could it be otherwise ? By her 
slave-property representation, she ever had such a majority as was 
sufficient to turn the scale in her favor. Where questions of slavery 
extension were involved, she has, in every case where the States 
themselves had not already decided the matter, been able to triumph 
as to the Territories. New Mexico, throughout whose plains and 
mountains the government of Mexico had issued a proclamation of 
liberty and a law against slavery, again has it permitted under a more 
enlightened government. When, m 1836, the question of the abol- 
ition of slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia was 
in agitation, the House of Representatives adopted, at Southern desire, 
the following resolution by a large majority : 

Resolved, ' ' That all petitions, memorials, and resolutions, propositions or papers 
relating in any way or to any extent whatever to the subject of slavery or the 
abolition of slavery shall, without being either printed or referred, be laid upon the 
table, and that no further action whatever shall be had thereon." 

It is the only instance in our history where the right of jDCtition 
was ever denied, and remained thus on the statute book till 1845, 
when, out of respect to the general right, it was rescinded. Upon 
complaint that anti-slavery papers had been sent South, permission 
was also given to search the mails and burn the matter. 

In almost every party and political move, the question of availabil- 
ity has been discussed, and this has usually meant what will be accept- 
able to the South. In fact, so used had we become to this sense of 
governmental inferiority, that we have been in the habit of intro- 
ducing Southern gentlemen as something more than ordinary Ameri- 
cans, and they themselves, in Europe, have learned to quote themselves 
as from the South rather than from the United States in general. 

This over-indulgence or permitted balance of power has been 
equally manifest in official appointments. Look over the record from 
the beginning of our Government until that of the present rebellion, 
a period of nearly seventy-two years. Twelve out of eighteen Presi- 
dents have been Southerners, and have held office forty-eight years, 
or over two thirds of the time. Besides, Pierce or Buchanan would 
not be accused of any sectional proclivities toward the North. The 
Secretaries of State have been fourteen from the South to nine from 
the North, or forty years out of sixty-nine. 

The Speakers of the House have been forty-five years Southern 
men, twenty-five Northern. 

The Presidents pro tern, of the Senate have, since 1809, all been 
from the South, except Southard and Bright, and these for but a 



WORDS ABOUT THE WAR. 23 

short time. Jesse D. Bright was as true then to his Southern bias as 
he is now. 

Seventeen out of twenty-eight Judges of the Supreme Court have 
been Southerners, and a majority always. 

Eighty out of 134 Foreign Ministers have been from the South. 

"Of 307 princii)al ajipointments under the Constitution, 204 have 
been heid by slaveholders." When we take into view the more than 
twofold population of the North, and her greater advance in science 
and education, the disproportion shows an enormous favoritism. 

A single fact from our Post-office statistics shows how we have 
indulged the South in a pecuniaiy point of view. According to 
the tables for 1859, the postage collected in the Free States was 
$5,532,999, and the expense of carrying the mails $6,748,189, leaving 
a deficit of $1,215,189. 

In the Slave States the amount collected was only $1,988,050, and 
the expenses of carrying the mails $6,016,612, leaving the enormous 
deficit of $4,028,568. The Slave States did not pay one third of the 
expense of carrying their mails, and Massachusetts, besides paying for 
hers, had a sui'plus larger than the whole amount collected in Soutli 
Carolina. 

II. The second cause of this difficulty is the change of view which 
has occurred in the South in reference to slavery. For the sake of 
brevity, I shall subjoin, without extended comment, specimen extracts 
from present and former statesmen. They will of themselves prove 
this wondrous backshding of view, and show that it is the South, not 
the North, that is so changed as to slavery — 

George Washington : *•' Thei'e is not a man living who wishes 
more sincerely than I do to see a plan adojited for the abolition of it. 
But theie is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be 
accomplished, and this is by legislative authority." 

Patrick Henry : " Slavery is detested — we feel its fatal effects — 
we deplore it with all the earnestness of humanity." 

Thomas Jefferson : " When the measure of their tears shall be 
full, doubtless a God of justice will awaken to theii- distress, and by 
diffusing a light and liberality among their oppressors, or at length 
by his exterminating thunder, manifest his attention to things of this 
world." 

James Madison : " We thought it Avrong to admit in the Consti- 
tution the idea that there could be property in men." 

John Randolph, 1820: "Sir, I envy neither the heart nor the 
head of that man from the North who rises here to defend slavery on 
princi{)le." 



24 WOEDS ABOUT THE WAB. 

Hon. Mr. Reid, of Georgia, 1820: "Slavery is an unnatural state, 
a dark cloud which obscures half the lustre of our free institu- 
tions." 

1832, in the Legislature of Virginia, Mr. Bolling, of Buckingham 
County : " That slavery is an evil, a great and appaUing evil, I dare 
believe no sane man could or would deny. That it is a blighting, 
withering curse upon this land is clearly demonstrated by this very 
discussion itself." 

Mr. Chandler, of Norfolk: "I took occasion to observe that I 
believed the people of Norfolk County would rejoice, could they, 
even in the vista of time, see some scheme for the gradual removal 
of this curse from our land." 

Mr. Faulknek, of Berkeley : " The idea of a gradual emancipation 
and removal of the slaves fi'om this Commonwealth is coeval with 
the declaration of your independence of the British yoke. Slavery, 
it is admitted, is an evil." 

Gov. McDowJELL : " It has been frankly and unequivocally de- 
clared from the very commencement of this debate, by the most 
decided enemies of abolition themselves, as well as by others, that 
this property is an evil — that it is a dangerous property." 

Judge E. Iredell, of North Carohna : "When the entire abolition 
of slavery takes place, it will be an event which must be pleasing to 
every geiieious mind." 

Such are the correct reflections of the general sentiment of the 
South during the earlier years of our history. They recognized 
slavery as an existing evil, were sorry for its presence, and while 
they did not feel that the General Government should interfere with 
it in the States, they had not yet come to behold it as a blessed insti- 
tution. But how changed now the modes of expression and the 
language of debate ! Evil habits indulged in either by good men 
or bad, too soon come to lose their hideous hue, and from being tol- 
erated, grow at length to be enjoyed. We now find the first men 
of the South speaking of it through these many years, not as an evil 
to be deplored, but a glorious institution to be encouraged. 

Let us commence with the grand high priest of this changed 
Southern view. 

John C. Calhoun : " Slavery is the most safe and stable basis 
for free institutions in the world." 

Jefferson Davis : " It is but a form of civil government for 
those who are not fit to govern themselves." He evidently now 
proposes to extend the application of his original idea over the North. 

Hunter, of Virginia : " It is the normal condition of human society, 



WORDS ABOUT THE WAR. fi", 

beneficial to the non-slaveowner as it is to the slaveowner — l/e.s. 
for the happiness of both races." " The very keystone of tlic mighty 
arch which, by its concentrated strength, is able to sustain our 
social suj)erstructure, consists in the black marble block of African 
slavery." 

Senator Masot, of Virginia : " Slavery is ennobling to the master, 
elevating to the slave." 

Dr. Palmer, of New Orleans : " The mission of the South is to 
conserve and perpetuate the institution of domestic slavery as it now 
exists." 

Senator Iverson, of Georgia : " Slavery must be maintained — in 
the Union, if possible ; out of, if necessary ; peaceably if we may, 
forcibly if we must." 

Senator Brown, of Mississippi : " I want Cuba. I want Tamauli- 
pas, Potosi, and one or two other Mexican states ; and I want them 
all for the same reason — for the planting and spreading of slavery. I 
would spread the blessings of slavery, like the religion of our Divine 
Master, to the uttermost ends of the earth ; and rebellious and 
wicked as the Yankees have been, I would even extend it to them." 

Mr. Gaulden, of Georgia, an able member of the Charleston Con- 
vention : " I believe slavery right, morally, religiously, socially, and 
politically. Let us ask our Northern friends to give us all our rights, 
and take off the ruthless restrictions which cut off the supply of slaves 
from foreign lands. The African slave-trader is the true Union man. 
I believe he is a true missionary. I tell you the slave-trading of Vir- 
ginia is more immoral, more unchristian, iii every possible point of 
view, than the African slave-trade, which goes to Africa and brings a 
heathen and worthless man here, makes him a useful man, and sends 
him and his posterity down the stream of time to join in the blessings 
of civilization." 

Quotations "arZ nauseam'''' might, as you well know, be added 
from the Wises, Pryors, Wigfiills, Thorn wells, and Rhetts of the 
South, from governors and legislators, judges and courts — in fact, 
from every department in which leading Southern men are found — to 
show that too extensively there has been a sad change in Southern 
sentiment. The testimony of two prominent men to this pohit is suf- 
ficient, if any more evidence is needed- 
Governor and Senator Hammond, of South Carolina, says (October 
24, 1858) : 

And what then [1833] was the state of opinion at the South ? Washington had 
emancipated his slaves. Jefferson had bitterly denounced the system, and had 
done all he could to destroy it. Our Clays, Marshalls, Crawfords, and many other 



26 WORDS ABOUT THK WAR. 

prominent Southern men led off in the colonization scheme. The inevitable effect 
on the South was, that she believed slavery to be an evil — weakness, disgraceful, 
nay, a sin. She shrunk from the discussion of it. She cowered under every threat. 
She attempted to apologize, to excuse herself on the plea — which was true— that 
England had forced it upon her. But now it would be difficult to find a Southern 
man who feels the system to be the slightest burden on his conscience, who doet; 
not, in fact, regard it as an equal advantage to the master and slave, elevating both 
as to wealth, strength, and power, and as one of the main pillars and controlling 
influences of modern civilization, and who is not now prepared to maintain it at 
every hazard. 

Alex. H. Stephens, of Georgia — speech at Savannah, March 21, 
1861: 

The prevailing ideas entertained by Jefl'erson and most of the leading statesmen, 
at the time of the formation of the old Constitution, were that the enslavement 
of the African was in violation of the laws of nature — that it was wrong in prin- 
ciple, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to 
deal with ; but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or 
other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent, and pass 
away. This idea, though not incorporated in the Constitution, was the prevailing 
idea at the time. 

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas. Its foundations 
are laid ; its corner-stone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to 
the white man. Our new government is the first in the history of the world based 
upon the great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. Many who hear mc per- 
haps can recollect well that this truth was not generally admitted, even within 
their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many, as late as twenty 
years ago. This stone, which was rejected by the first builders, is become the chief 
stone of the corner in our new edifice. 

Here is proof better than pages of argument as to who have 
changed on this great question. The policy of our forefathers was 
by a Hmitation of the African slave-trade, by preventing introduction 
of new slaves, and by preventing its spread to new territories, thus 
to cause the system to circumscribe itself and become extinct. The 
policy of the South — that which has brought upon us our present 
evils — ^has been to extend the so-called beneficent institution as far as 
their power and influence could carry it. The whole tendency of 
this admitted change of sentiment has been to promote agitation, to 
encourage demands at variance with the design of the Constitution, 
as it is admitted to be at variance with the will of its founders, and 
then to call those agitators who oppose these new doctrines. It is a 
party which thus, by their own admissions and assertions, have been 
for the last thirty years breaking in upon the principles of our fore- 
fathers, and then, in order to shelter themselves, accuse those who 
have resisted their encroachments of creating an excitement and 
endangering the liberties of the country. 



WOKDS ABOUT THE WAK. 27 

m. The third cause of the present war is the wrong feeling and 
wrong action which are inseparable from the continuous existence of 
slavery in a republic. 

This was most fully recognized by the founders of our Government. 
Slavery then existed in all but one of the States, and those who 
formed the Constitution, and who were members of our earlier legis- 
lative bodies, knew its workings. 

Jefferson, in the full vigor of his intellect, had well depicted its 
true results in a national point of view. Speaking of the conduct of 
masters toward their slaves, he says : 

The parent storms ; the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on 
the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives loose to his worst passions, and 
thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, can not but be stampe.. by 
it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his man- 
ners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And with what execration 
should the statesman be loaded who, permitting one half of the citizens thus to 
trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, these into ene- 
mies, destroys the morals of the one part and the amor patrice or love of country of 
the other. 

With the morals of the people their industry is also destroyed — for in a warm 
climate no man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him. This 
is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are 
ever seen to labor. And oan the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we 
have removed their only firm basis — a conviction in the minds of the people that 
these liberties are the gift of God ? that they are not to be violated but with his 
wrath ? 

It is not that the people of the South are in any way by nature 
debased, but no class or nation can withstand such bad influences. 
Where they are recognized and deplored as evils they are, like sin to 
the Christian, unfruitful, but yet not so debasing ; but where these 
very things ai'e rejoiced in, the eyes are shut to watchfulness, and the 
evil ranges In its unrestrained degradation. The man who, as a sys- 
tem, can make others work for him without any pay, who can live on 
the hard toil of others alone, who can buy and sell for money men, 
women, and children, often by necessity without any regard to the 
family relation, who, as the unlimited monarch of 20, 50, 100, or 500 
negroes, can use or abuse them as he chooses, and yet feel no desire 
for times when such things shall be at an end, has in the very process 
a training which imfits him or his posterity for aiding in a free 
government permanently. 

There is no true democracy in such training. It is all aristocracy. 
There is no republicanism here. It is slavery. There is no appreci- 
ation of the rights of the working classes. It is the one prominent 
idea of self-superiority. The lord of the plantation, with the addi- 



28, WORDS ABOUT THE WAR. 

tioiial power and swell of rank added to him, thus gets so in the 
habit of feeling big, that it does not subside even at Washington. 

Knowledge, virtue, and a sense of the dignity of labor are the three 
great starting-points in the success of a republican government, and 
none of these are fostered by slavery. The very system places each 
of them at a discount. 

Education would kill slavery, for every man South and North 
knows that if you educate a man lie will not work for notliing, as a 
system. The necessary habits, mode of life, training, and surround- 
ings of slavery do not foster religion in either master or slave ; and 
Jefferson has exhausted the other point when he says that "in a 
warm climate no man will labor for himself who can make another 
labor for him." It is not that every slaveholder is a bad man, for 
circumstances, natural ability, some peculiar powers of parental train- 
ing, and the grace of God make exceptions ; but one not, by personal 
residence and the laws of habit, contaminated or habituated to the 
influence can not fail to perceive that the practices of slavery are not 
the school for the purest knowledge, the best morals, or the most 
energetic industry ; not the place to learn how to dispense laws to a 
free people, or how to be governed by the voice of a constitutional 
majority. Submission to the ballot-box, to the juiy, to the law, is a 
lesson the master never learns at home. His biggest, longest, fullest 
lesson, from early childhood to decrepit age, is, Submission to me, 
and that is a poor lesson to be so forcibly taught in a republican 
government. Did space permit, many arguments and a thousand 
facts in our actual history might be addiiced as to these points ; but 
my object is rather to show the key which opens lap the causes of our 
trouble, and to lead others to follow on to their own legitimate con- 
clusions. Actual occurrences in our Government, in our halls of 
Congress, and in public acts have so cleai'ly demonstrated these 
points as scarce to need rehearsal ; and the present war is but the 
ripe fruit dropping from this upas-tree, which from a little shrub 
has been growing up under the shadow of our tree of liberty. The 
hope, dawning bright through the future, is that this is the last crop ; 
that now, at least, in some Avay, a final settlement will be made. 

We have thus briefly noticed what Secession or Rebellion is, and 
what are its assumed and its real causes. To one who will honestly 
follow the history of our Government, from the times when our 
fathers fought, and bled, and died in its defense, to those in which 
we live, and Avill but read and see the facts of our political history, 
the bare-faced iniquity of this Avhole rebellion can not but be appa- 
rent. It has Tiever, in its enormity, had a parallel since the revolt of 



WOEDS ABOUT THE WAE. 29 

Satan from the autliority of Heaven. The stream of ancient and of 
modern history has no such muddy pool in its midst. As the mind 
rests after its vain search for causes justifying the enormity of such 
an outbreak, it can but sadly sigh over the new insight into hmnan 
wickedness thus uncovered. But the practical question right at 
hand is, What is to be done V There can be but one reasonable 
answer. The rebellion must be put down. It is no time for hesitat- 
ing on minor points. The actual existence of our Government is in- 
volved ; our personal liberties are assailed ; the interest of human 
civilization, and liberty, and law, and morals are all on trial in the 
conflict. They take a narrow view of the whole matter avIio regard 
it as a small diiference, to be all settled up in a few days. We live 
in an epoch and era of history. There have been heretofore s(jme 
years in the world's history that in their weighty results have counted 
large as centuries, and so shall it be with our day. For weal or woe 
we are deciding the rights of constitutional law to maintain itself, 
the power of free institutions as a form of government, and the con- 
dition of the generations Avho maj^ foUow us in the line of posterity. 
If we hesitate now, the grand armada of popular rights and boasted 
independence goes down amid the howling storm, and the black night 
of the most exciting anarchy that ever registered its name in the 
chronology of history. If in the nineteenth century of the world's 
life the United States of America are to be dissolved by an armed 
rebellion, seeking to break over all its noble constitutional laws, and to 
found an empire avowedly resting upon a principle of slavery, then 
well may we forever bid a last adieu to all anticipations of earthly 
peace, and consider the " rights of the people" forever hereafter the 
name for a baseless shadow. But no, it is not so — so it shall not be. 
The Government must be sustained. When my house is attacked 
and my home interests are in peril, I care not in whose charge it may 
have been placed, I will go and defend it. Now is not the time for 
us to talk of party or power. The Supreme authority — that is oui- 
Government, and it must be supported so long as it is evidently 
making honest eftbrt to subdue the rebellion. They who are con- 
stantly finding fault with little matters should be willing to feel thai: 
these are of but little consequence compared with the great issue at 
stake. Madison said, in 1789, " No man but an enemy of liberty will 
stand on technicahties and forms when the essence is in question.'" 
Mistakes will undoubtedly be made ; but we do not sustain our be.«t 
friends in the time of their peril by ex])anding their little faults, even 
though they be real, but rather by standing up firmly as their un- 
swerving friend^. The United States Government, the best earthly 



30 WORDS ABOUT THK WAR. 

friend of every American citizen, has now the right to just such sup- 
port from you. The Repubhcan should sustain the war, not merely 
because of his opinion or vote, but because a rebellion has occurred — 
because the Constitution and laws are assailed — because an armed 
force is attempting to go contrary to the government of that " per 
petual Union" which was formed for " ourselves and posterity." 

The Union man should sustain the w^ar, not only because the very 
name of his party declares him opposed at all hazards to a separation, 
but because the very Constitution which he has so loved as to be sat- 
isfied with it just as it is, is broken and made as a thing of naught ; 
and most of all, the Democrat should support the war because he, of 
all others, is the most outraged by this attempt. His very name de- 
notes his behef in the right of majorities to govern. His very name 
is the oath of submission to the expressed will of the people. His 
very name denotes his opisosition to an aristocracy of wealth or even 
to any system of labor which does not secure to all the right of re- 
ward therefor. 

Besides these, there are certain facts in connection with this war 
which should make the Democrat incensed beyond all other men at 
the action of the South. It has been the party which has ever been 
faithful to the so-called rights of the South ; which has given them 
its chief appointments ; which has for them suffered in many^ things, 
and which, when united, still had at the North a powerful organ- 
ization. The principle of the Democratic party has ever been sub- 
mission to the will of the majority, and yet in disregard to this very 
principle, a part of the party has forsaken the other. Besides, the 
whole conduct of the Charleston Convention, so far as the South was 
concerned, was in utter disregard of all Democratic principles. The 
question w^as not, what is the will of the majority ? but will the whole 
party submit to the wiU of the few ? Still more flagrant is the fact, 
that the South departed from the old platform, and asked more than 
ever before. Noble men contended that the principles of Democracy 
were unchangeable, and that they should make their stand upon the 
Cincinnati platform, which left the Territories equally oj^en to settle- 
ment from every section. But this was not enough. The South had 
in our eai'ly history acquiesced in the exclusion of slavery from every 
particle of our territory; had then consented to its exclusion only 
south of the line 36° 30', but had now not only succeeded in repealing 
the Missouri Compromise, but was actually contending that the Consti- 
tution carries slavery into the Territories, and some absolutely denied 
the right of a State to apply for admission with slavery excluded. 
In a speech made at Augusta, Georgia, Sept. 1st, 1860, A. H. Ste 



WOKDS AIMIT THK WAR. 



31 



phens clearly exposes the faithk's.-ness of \\\v Southern Democracj 
Speaking of the secession or withdrawal of delegates from the con- 
ventions at Charleston and Baltimore, he says : 

This secession movement is founded on a departure from principle, not only a de" 
parturc from the Georgia platform, and from the long estal)lished principles of the 
National Democratic party, but upon an entire change of position of the entire 
South of all parties, not of all individuals, in relation to the power and jurisdiction 
of the Federal Government over the subject of African slavery. What I affirm is, 
that the position of the South for twenty years and more— since the celebrated 
Atherton resolutions — has been a denial of the jurisdiction of Congress over the 
subject of slavery in the Stales and Territories. It was upon this denial of jurisdic- 
tion that the South resisted the reception of abolition petitions. This position is 
directly reversed at Charleston and Baltimore. If we go to Congress with a re- 
quest, a petition, or demand to pass a law to protect slavery in the Territories, why 
may not — on the same principle, so far as jurisdiction of the question is concerned — 
the anti-slavery men of the North go before the same body with their request, pe- 
tition, or demand, and ask that such a law shall not be passed, or that one of a con- 
trary character shall be passed ? 

November 14, 1860, he says, in remarks on the election of Lincoln : 

I give it to you as my opinion, that but for the policy the Southern people pur- 
sued, this fearful result would not have occurred. Had the South stood firmly in 
the Convention at Charleston on her old platform of principles of non-intervention, 
there is in my mind but little doubt that whoever might have been the candidate 
of the National Democratic party, would have been elected by as large a majority as 
that which elected Mr. Buchanan or Mr. Pierce. 

When I review the records of that Charleston and Baltimore 
Convention, and behold the utter unreasonableness of Southern men, 
I wonder not that General Butler, who there plead for union on the 
good old platform, should have seen enough to nerve him to draw 
the sword against such fanatics, as that thousands and tens of thou- 
sands who know the history of their betrayal, slK)uld with indignant 
eai'nestness resolve to maintain our rights to the last. Against such 
an exacting oligarchy it was in vain that then their best friends plead 
for a return to reason, and where <uch men as Butlei-, Buchanan, 
Cass, Douglas, Dix, Dickinson, Holt, and a host of other names dis- 
tinguished on the Democratic roll, bid you at all hazards to throw the 
whole weight of your power and influence in the scale of our Gov- 
ernment, you need not hesitate. Events even then as well as now 
showed that there was no spirit of conciliation or compromise on 
their part. Yancey, the leader of the crew, had said long before 
this: "By one organized, concerted action, we can i)reci])itate the 
Cotton States into a revolution." 

A Democratic administration used every means in their power to 
.avert the storm, or even to postpone it, but while our pi-inces plead, 



32 WOKDb AbOUT THE WAK. 

the Confederates robbed our Governiricnt and fired upon our vessels, 
and assumed the attitude of bold revolt. "A committee," says 
Genera] Dix, "of which I was chairman, in an address to our rfor.ili- 
ern brethren, adopted at a meeting in Pine Street, in December la- 1. 
recommended that the States should meet together for conHuh^iJio:!, 
and if they could not settle their difficulties amicably, and pre-cr..- 
the Union, that they should arrange the terms of separation, and 
save the country from the horrors of civil war. We implored them 
to pause in order to give us time for an effort to restore harmony 
and fraternal feeling. We appealed to them in language of entreaty, 
which would have been humiliating if it had not been addressed to 
brethren of the same political family. To this appeal, enforced by 
the concurrence of eminent citizens of this State, who had always 
been the most strenuous advocates of Southern rights, the States to 
which it was addressed responded by setting the authority of the 
Union at defiance, by seizing the public forts and arsenals, by seducing 
Federal officers from their allegiance, and in one instance by confis- 
cating the treasures of the Government. For months these outrages 
were submitted to, with no efibrt on the })art of the Government to 
resent or punish them, in the hope that, imder the guidance of bettor 
counsels, those who committed them would return to their allegiance.'" 
They sent us commissioners, not to arrange terms of conciliation, but 
of separation — not to unite, but to dissever our country. The sug- 
gestions of Buchanan and of l^incoln as to a convention of all fhi 
States were alike totally disregarded on their part, although acqui- 
esced in by the North. The attempted peace conventions were crip 
pled by the absence of representatives from the States most con 
earned, and yet even these showed a disposition to restore the 
Missouri Compromise, to make fully elfective the Fugitive Slavt 
Law, and to provide in the Constitution for complete non-intervention 
with slavery in the States. But the Cotton States did not wait for 
terms of peace. That was not what they desired. In their imagina 
tions they had already builded a tower of Southern independence, an 
ideal republic, with the negro as its foundation, cotton its su]>]>ori., 
and aristocracy its king, and the blind infatuation w\as not tf) be 
restrained by any appeals to argument or fact. Our only resort is 
an " appeal to arms and to that God who presides over the destinies 
of nations," and who is upon the side of the right. In one sense, it 
mattei's little as to the causes of the war, foi" when the house is on 
fire, the point is to put it out, rather than to stand parleying as to 
the method of its start ; but when, as in this case, we come to exam- 
ine the high-handed treason of this rebellion, it can not but ner^ c o-v 



WORDS ABOUT THE WAR. 33 

energies and incite our zeal. When under the guidance of the mas- 
ter spirit of this rebellion, South CaroUna raised her arm of resistance, 
swearing " by the Eternal," the noble Jackson said, " Our Federal 
Union — it must be preserved." Nullification was secession in the 
bud, and he bUghted it. It was resistance of one national law. 
Secession is resistance to them aU, and the occasion for decision thus 
multiplied by the greater enormity and extent of the offense requires 
us to grapple with the monster, though it be a Uon grown. It is 
either a life or death struggle for free governments everywhere. 
Interests immense enough to thrill every frame with concentrated, 
working, praying, giving energy, are at stake in the issue. Let not 
a hand falter, not a heart hesitate, not a man be lukewarm in such a 
struggle. By all the justice of sublime right, by all the value of our 
blood-purchased liberties, by aU the enormity of this uncalled-for 
rebellion, you are summoned to use to the uttermost all the means 
and influences necessary to victory. Your country, your family, your 
posterity, and freedom all over the great world has a claim upon 
your persistent, xmflinching, untiring devotion to this cause. The 
man who in such a crisis will stand balancing himself hither and 
thither amid mere party issues, shows that he has not nobility enough 
to rise to the higher level of patriotic devotion. What we now want 
is not Politics, but Patriotism. Let the old lines be blotted out, and 
let us now know but one party, and that our country's ; or if we must 
have two, let it be plainly those who contend for a vigorous prose- 
cution of the war, without any idea of a dissolution of the Union, and 
on the other hand, those who are willing to purchase peace at any 
price. 

We proceed last to inquire as to the results of this war. No one 
a single year since would have predicated the state of affairs now 
existing, and no one can fully define the results of events at present 
transpiring. A few thoughts, however, in reference to them' are well 
to be kept before the mind. 

To many the cost of the present war and the hard times connected 
therewith are the first prominent matters of thought. Yet as to 
both of these there are hopeful views. New England sighed over 
the war of 1814 as ruining all her interests, and at the time it did 
indeed cause suffering and want, but it proved one of the grandest 
elements in her subsequent success, and her commerce and manufac- 
tures, her material interests, owe more to that war than to any one 
cause of progress. War employs labor and capital ; it sets in circu- 
lation the gold and silver which has not been accessible to the poor. 
Its tendency is to equalize wealth. The rich, by our system of taxa- 



34: WORDS ABOUT THE WAK. 

tion, contribute far more in proportion than the poor, and I am 
greatly disappointed if the effect of this war will not be greatly to 
benefit the laboring classes. As to its cost, when not so rich we ex- 
pended over 500,000,000 of dollars, chiefly for Southern lands and 
defenses, and we are as able to spend at least such an amount in 
defense of our liberties. How a country can endure the expense of 
war we can only learn from the records of the past, and he who will 
study EngHsh or French history, and then compare the ability of our 
country at present with these in former days, will not be distressed 
as to our resources. The little property of thirteen colonies, that 
could endure the expense of a seven years' war with England in "76, 
will not, in its present developed state, be troubled by a calculation 
of expense. In a single week the call for investment on behalf of 
the Government has been met by a response of millions of dollars. 
Such a country need have no fear as to the materials for prosecuting 
the war. 

II. A result to be sought in this war is a re-modeling of our 
poUtical habits. We have before us the demonstration that " knowl- 
edge and virtue are necessary to perpetuate our independence." "We 
must re-write the motto, not only on the portals and domes of our 
liberty temples, but in the hearts and consciences of our people. In 
the South, one out of twelve of the white population can neither read 
nor write, besides the tens of thousands for whom little attempt is 
made, and who yet are represented in the councils of the nation. At 
the North, knowledge and religion do not prevail as they might, and 
the whole land needs more of education, industry, and morahty. 
Bible principle and general intelligence must be made to take their 
place as the foundations of our Government. Good men must not 
allow themselves to be thrust aside by pot-house poHticians, but must 
take their places in the primary meeting, or in whatever is the starting- 
point of legislation. So long as the man who can neither read nor 
write, or who comes reeling to the ballot-box, is allowed his vote, so 
long as it is no crime for men to purchase votes and oflice, so long as 
intelligence and morality are at a discount in high places, so long 
republican forms of government must be a foUure. Certain facts and 
phases of American society and morals trouble me more than burn- 
ished guns and glistening bayonets across the Potomac ; and in the 
grand re-construction which must eventually take place if our country 
is restored, we must now begin to lay again the foundation of liberty 
in morals, education, and justice. This is not the work of resolve, 
but of time, and now is the time for the capable and the good to 
take their places in the primary work of redeeming the land from the 



WORDS ABOrT THE WAK. 35 

traitorship of politics. Althougli this war may take time and money 
and human lives, yet all will be ^vell expended if they serve to cleanse 
away the filth of party organization and bring us back again to the 
purity and principle of earlier days. Some other system than packed 
conventions and political bribes must furnish our legislative counsels 
with proper representation. Delegates to nominating conventions 
must be voted for at the same time our representatives are chosen, or 
some other plan must be adopted completely to overturn the wire- 
pulling clique-work of the land. If slavery was the nest-ego; of this 
rebellion, politics has hatched it — and it is proving itself the befitting 
progeny of such a pedigree. 

III. Another result to be sought is the final settlement of this 
vexed slavery question. Different views, in this respect, Avill un- 
doubtedly prevail. One class will be willing, in order to have peace, 
that slavery be allowed to run, have free course, and be glorified, and 
thus will consent to purchase peace by the sacrifice of principle, and 
present ease at the immense cost of prospective punishment and 
misrule. Another class will be satisfied that the States shall be 
brought back as before, with the prevention of the African slave- 
trade, and the non-extension of slavery forever determined ; willing 
to let it remain as it is in the States, hoiking that, notwithstanding the 
fact that vice has never been known to die out by being left alone, 
and, notwithstanding slavery, even in the States, has been actually on 
the increase, that yet in some way or other it will cease to exist. 
They will thus be satisfied to leave this matter to time, believing that 
the reorganization of society, and the new colonization which will in- 
evitably ensue from the present wai-, as well as the new sources of 
supply for the products of slave-labor which w^ill be found, will of 
themselves destroy the system. A third class, few and small, will 
cry for immediate emancipation as the only cure of all our troubles. 

A fourth will take the ground, that so long as we perpetuate the 
cause of our troubles, and a system which, in itself, has a tendency 
to unfit men for participating in a republican government, we can 
have no permanent peace ; that now is the time to provide for the 
complete extinction of this system, not by any imjust act., but by con, 
fiscating this as well as other property of rebels, and by purchasing 
of those not rebels, their slaves, or by so setting bounds to the system 
as that for the public good it shall cease, after a specified period, 
uiKler an equitable system of compensation. .V fifth will feel that it 
is enough to know that the existence of our nation is at stake, and 
that one and all should unite to subdue the rebellion, leaving all 
questions formerly at issue between us to be settled either by the 



3^ WORDS ABOUT THE WAK. 

Constitution or by a Convention, called in accordance with its pro- 
visions. Such seems to be the plain doctrine of the present Admin- 
istration. We are not yet able fuUy to discern what may be the' 
indications of Providence, of reason, and of statesmanship, but sucli 
points as these should be undergoing the careful scrutiny of huin.in 
mind, in order that we may act right at the right time, and secure 
a perpetual liberty to us and to our children. It is a time for the 
American people — the masses — to be thinking as well as acting. A 
chip can float, but a nation, as well as a man, is tested by being 
equal to emergencies. We must open our minds to a more ade- 
quate conception of the immense, unparalleled interests which cluster 
around the age — around us. To live in such a crisis and be equal 
to it is a grand glory — to stand trembling, hesitating, or drawing- 
back is a misfortune sadder than oblivion. Let us set up no false 
banners. 

K we are fighting for the existence of our Government, for the 
supremacy of law, for our Republic, that is grand enough. So let it 
nerve the heart and strengthen the arm. 

If, besides the great problem of the possibility of stability in 
repubUcan forms of government any and everywhere is under trial, 
still more immense and intense is the struggle. If so, let a watching 
world inspire us. 

If, whether we will or no, the condition and destiny of another 
race is involved, let philanthropy utter its voices, and let us seek 
what is duty here. There are interests, it may be, pending, worthy 
of the manly courage and heroic endurance of many a year. Our 
country, posterity, humanity, and God, it may be, have claims upon 
us which can not be discharged in a single campaign. 

We have nothing to fear so much as a patched-up peace. From 
the time of Jeremiah to that of John Breckenridge, it has ever been 
the resort of traitors, no less than the faint-hearted, to cry for peace 
when there is no peace. The recent letter of General Butler has the 
true sentiment on that point : 

I see with pain upon the part of some of those with whom I have acted in polit- 
ical organizations a disposition to advocate peaceful settlements, wherein there can 
be no peace. However desirable, it is not to be purchased on any terms save the 
recognition of the authority of the Federal Government over every inch of territory 
which ever belonged to it. A peace involving the separation of the Union, or 
until the supremacy of the Government is forever established, would be simply a 
declaration of perpetual war of sections. 

Let us nobly face the music of constitutional Uberty, and defend 
the rights of our Government, untU they who have attempted to 



WORDS ABOUT THE WAR. 37 

trample upon its institutions shall be ready to seek an honorable 
peace at our hands. As a nation, we have sinned in egotism, in 
extravagance, in political corruption, and in derelictions from prin- 
ciple, but our sin is not imposition upon the South. We had endured 
until submission had almost ceased to be a virtue, but now that, still 
worse, the hand of war is raised against us, it is time to arise to the 
full demand of- our civil, political, and moral rights. The war will 
be short enough, when it ends with these secured. 

Not permitted myself to engage in armed defense of that country 
whose present welfare is so near my heart, I have thus endeavored 
to present a few considerations worthy of our attention in the j^resent 
crisis. I can not believe that the numbers who are not fully aroused 
with a sense of justice and of duty in the present struggle are aware 
of the facts of the case, for all history can not make out a clearer 
defense than can the American citizen for a hearty co-operation in the 
support of this war. I have purposely avoided elaborate argument 
or pathetic appeal, that I might present in brief, facts which can not 
but carry conviction to the honest heart. Up to the time of the 
Charleston Convention a Democrat in politics, descended, like the 
Southerner, from the Cavaliers whom some one meanly describes as 
"• gentlemen adventurers, aspiring to live by their own wits," born 
and bred in the moderate, conservative State of New Jersey, and by 
a Southern sojourn and acquaintanceship having seen Southern soci- 
ety and institutions, with Uberal allowance, my mind was not cheer- 
fully brought to the sad realities of our present peril. But history, 
and acts and facts which I can not resist any more than I can a 
belief in the simplest axioms of truth, force me, as I believe they will 
you, to an unreserved dedication and determination, founded upon 
the full persuasion that it is our duty, one and all, with one heart 
and one mind, throAving aside all other political issues, to fight and 
work and labor on manfuUy, energetically, patriotically, unflinchingly, 
until the arm of rebellion is paralyzed, and the power of this best of 
all governments fully re-established. 

I shall, in conclusion, add to this, as expressing the true sentiment 
which should fill every American heart, the following eloquent lan- 
guage from the mouth of D. S. Dickinson : 

I hold it to be the first duty of every citizen, of every party, to aid in restoring — 
if restored it can be — this great and good Government. If it is right for a portio)> 
of this country to take up arms against this Government, it is right to sustain such 
action ; and if they are wrong, they should be put dovni by the power of tlic pen 
pie. There is no half-way house in this matter — no tarrying-place between .-justain- 
ing the Government and attempting its overthrow. There is no peace proposition 
tliat will suit the case until thi* rebelli'>n is first put down. - "' I believe thit- 



38 WORDS ABOUT THE WAR. 

rebellion did not arise out of sectional agitation, but from a blind, wicked, reckless 
ambition. And I believe it is the duty of every man, woman, and child to raise an 
arm against it to crush it. * * Those causes of irritation, although they may 
have suggested to Southern States to request becoming guaranties, they never justi- 
fied armed rebellion in any shape or manner. And what were those causes of irri- 
tation ? The only real, practical cause of irritation was the non-execution of the 
Fugitive Slave Law. But that did not affect the Cotton States, so called ; but Mis- 
souri, Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, and perhaps one or two other 
States, were the only ones ever injured by it. The Cotton Sifcates, so called, never 
lost a fugitive slave from the time of their existence to this day. To be sure, they 
had a question about territories, but it was so entirely ideal, a mere abstraction, 
and so practically not a real grievance. But if it had been, they had the Supreme 
Court and both branches of Congress, and practically had control of the question. 
The fugitive slave question was the only practical question which annoyed them, 
and that question was not the cause of the rebellion. What State first seceded ? 
South Carolina began to scrape lint before the votes were counted. She had no 
practical grievance whatsover. ^ '' I was for negotiating a peace, until a forti- 
fication was fired upon by rebel artillery, and then I bade adieu to all expectations 
of peace until conquered over rebellion. I say there is no peace until you can put 
down rebellion by force of arms ; and when every other man, woman, and child in 
the United States has acknowledged the independence of the revolted States, to 
those with arms in their hands I will still oppose it, and I will talk for my own 
gratification when no others will hear me. We must stand by the Union. Fellow- 
citizens, the language of Andrew Jackson was, " The Union must and shall be pre- 
served. ' ' What would Gen. Jackson have done had he been at the helm to-day .' 
He would have hung the traitors higher than Haman. You may make peace mth 
the loyal men of the South, and there is the place to make it. But how will you 
do it with rebellion ? Go with an agreement in one hand and a revolver in the 
other, and ask the Confederacy to take its choice ? If there is any you can deal 
with, it is the loyal citizens of the South — those that are persecuted for the sake 
of their Government — those that love their Constitution, and are willing to die in 
its defense, when they are restored to position by conquering rebellion. Are you 
in favor of war ? No ; but I am in favor of putting down war by force of arms. 
I am opposed to war, and in favor of obtaining peace by putting down the authors 
of the war. I am in favor of peace, but I am in favor of the only course that will 
insure it — driving out armed rebellion, negotiating with loyalty. We must fight 
battles, and bloody battles. We must call vast numbers of men into the field. 
We must not go as boys to a general training, with ladies, and idlers, and members 
of Congress to see the show, but we must go in earnest— go prepared for action — 
to fight it as a battle, and not to fight it as a play-spell. We must unite as a 
whole people, going shoulder to shoulder. And when we do so, we shall conquer. 
And why ? We have the right, we have the prestige of government, have the 
sympathy of the disinterested world, we have the moral and material elements to 
do it all, and to insure victory. Rebellion has not the financial ability to stand a 
long war, with all their gains from iJrivateering and piracy, and issuing Confederate 
bonds — made a lien upon the property of people who were never consulted as to 
their issue, and who repudiate them — worth as much as a June frost, a cold wolf 
track, which no financier fit to be outside of the lunatic asylum would give a shil- 
ling a peck for. They may vex, they may harass, they may destroy, they ma} 
commit piracy, but the reckoning is to come for all this. They will be brought t. 



WORDS ABOUT THE WAK. 3Jf 

the judgmeut uf tlie Americau iiuople— of their own people. They will be a; 
laigned. and wlio is there will be ready to stand up as their defenders in the name 
of the Constitution ? ^ * It will be time enough to straggle over who shall 
administer the Government when we are sure we have one to administer. He who 
is not for it, is against it. I have determined to fight this battle out, but on no 
political grounds. I stand upon the constitutional ground of my fathers. There 
I will stand, and animate my countrymen to stand with me ; and when once we 
shall have peace restored — when we shall have put dovni rebellion, when we shall 
have encouraged fidelity, when peace and prosperity .shall again greet us, then let 
us see if any part of any State is oppressed, if any individual is wronged, if any 
are deprived of their rights — see that equal and exact justice is extended to all. 



'\,AIJ^'E*'■''^^ 



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WORDS ABOUT THE WAR: 






t IPIain Jfatts for |piarn feo^U, ) 

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EZRA M. HUNT. 



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^ COPYRIGHTED. T 

NEW YORK: ^ 

PRINTED BY F. SOMERS, 

No. 13 SPKUCE STREET. 
1861. 



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